Six years after the sociopolitical outbreak of 2018, the crimes committed by the repressive forces at the service of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo continue unpunished. This Sunday, April 21, different civic organizations demanded justice on social networks for the murder of the journalist Ángel Eduardo Gahona Lópezwho was shot while live streaming a civic protest in Bluefields.
Through its official his murder goes unpunished.
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The organization detailed that Gahona’s family “reported the case to the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI Nicaragua), which formed the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and demanded that the State carry out an impartial investigation.”
However, the dictatorship, in an “attempt to divert attention,” captured two people under a judicial process “full of loopholes and illegalities” and “quickly closed the case.” “They never contacted Gahona’s family to hear his testimonies and evidence and witnesses that pointed to the Police were omitted,” declared the human rights organization.
The Collective demanded that the police authorities “clarify the Gahona crime and let independent Nicaraguan journalists work to guarantee freedom of expression and of the press, violated with the arrival of the dictator to power.”
The humanitarian organization trusts that “justice will prevail not only for Gahona and his family, but for all journalism in Nicaragua, which from exile has known how to reinvent itself in the face of the hatred and revenge of the dictators.” “Nicaraguan reporters have had the courage to daily denounce the crimes against humanity that the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship has committed along with several high-ranking officials and police officers,” they add.
deserves justice
From San José, Costa Rica, the members of the Independent Journalists and Communicators of Nicaragua (PCIN) organization regretted, through a statement, that “six years after this crime, Gahona’s case continues in impunity, without justice for him or for his family”.
«We demand justice for Ángel Gahona and urge the international community to carry out an impartial and expeditious investigation to clarify the facts and punish those responsible because this is the responsibility of the State of Nicaragua, where there is no respect for laws or human rights. Like Ángel’s case, there are more than 355 people murdered and their families also deserve justice,” the report details.
PCIN reiterated the call to the international community to “maintain attention on Nicaragua and continue supporting the independent press, as well as condemning human rights violations.”
The union also asked the Nicaraguan people to “remember Ángel’s work and his commitment to truth and quality journalism.” The organization stated that “on this day of reflection and struggle, we reaffirm our commitment to truth and justice, and we will continue to work tirelessly so that ‘Nicaragua becomes a republic again.'”
Killed for reporting
On April 21, 2018, during the first three days of social protests against the Nicaraguan regime, the number of victims of government repression had risen to 21. One of the most remembered murders was that of journalist Angel Gahona, originally from the city of Bluefields. The incident occurred at approximately 6:30 in the afternoon, when the communicator was making a live broadcast through Facebook Live.
Gahona was reporting the damage caused to a building, in the city of Bluefields, during the social protests that were being repressed by the Police. “You can see the door and walls of what is the Banpro ATM, completely destroyed,” he narrates live, and when he goes to show details of the destruction, a gunshot is heard and the journalist falls with a crash. The detonation annihilated him almost immediately. That was the last report of him.
Ángel Gahona produced and directed the television news program El Meridiano, together with his wife, currently in exile, Migueliuth Sandoval, who worked as a presenter for the media. To date this crime remains unpunished, despite the fact that the dictatorship tried to hold young people and former political prisoners of the Caribbean Coast responsible. Brandon Wolf and Glen Slate, However, even the victims’ relatives deny that they had committed the crime.
Related news: Journalist Ángel Gahona was one of the seven murdered on April 21, 2018
The Nicaragua Never Again Collective affirms that this “tragic event was the beginning of a large-scale plan by the Nicaraguan dictatorship against independent journalism that has consisted of death threats, attacks, illegal detentions, defamation campaigns, destruction of media communication and espionage.
Since 2018, at least 253 Nicaraguan journalists have left Nicaragua due to the persecution and criminalization of their work, as the dictatorship frequently labels them “terrorists.” The organization emphasized in the case of the journalist Victor Ticay, Channel 10 correspondent, who was arrested one day after broadcasting a religious activity on Facebook Live and has already served a year as a political prisoner.
